so many connections . . .THE LAST LECTURE

Alice Storytelling was the turning point.

Kimberly tried to talk about Randy Pausch's inspirational celebration of life just a few weeks ago . . . We looked at each other--my thyroid-cancer-survivor child-heroine and I, daughter of another brave man who lost his battle with Randy's nemesis when he was Randy's age. We looked at each other. . . and moved on to safer thoughts, thoughts that would not drown us in memories old and not yet old enough.

I have run away from death and dying since losing Daddy, losing him the day Kimberly, his first grandchild, celebrated the six-month anniversary of her arrival in our lives.

But the connections were much too powerful this time. The Carnegie-Mellon connection--Kimberly's and Albrecht's alma mater. And Alice Storytelling, reminders of my own brief, unintentional-yet-intense love affair with artifical intelligence, the LISP parser, Kimberly's following that whimsical lead of mine into her own cognitive science major at CMU. Not that either of us continued down that particular road. But technology--the technology of storytelling--courses through our veins even now.

And the rocket on the cover of Randy's book? Man first stepped on the moon Daddy's last summer on our Earth. Jamie, his grandson and namesake, majored in aerospace engineering. His greatgrandsons are growing up even now with stars in their eyes, solar systems on their ceilings. Astronauts have signed books on our shelves, pictures on our walls. . .

I've downloaded Alice Storytelling--to unzip and explore another day perhaps. I smiled when I read it came with no support, to use at my own risk. Sentence-combining software memories, the stuff of which a PhD was crafted all those years ago on that whimsical path of mine. I'm not afraid of Alice, not at all. Maybe not even of dying, so much . . .

I've ordered Randy's book, two days in print and already backordered at Amazon.com.

I will read his book. I will celebrate his life. I will hope, when my turn comes to let go of the light, to make the most of that experience too. . .

April showers . . .

Strange week . . . I'm feeling a little like the weather tonight--drizzled. Just enough of a question mark in my life--maybe a fork or two in the road ahead--to make finishing seem more important than beginning.

I think when I look back on this year I'll smile at the organized butterfly I've almost become. Taking stock isn't a bad thing, even if doing so much of it all at one time feels a little out of character.

And there's still time for play. I finally succumbed, after a couple of months of the free daily online jigsaw, and bought a set of 50 digital puzzles yesterday (and have already completed 4!). And Kira should have plenty of whatever that Webkinz currency is called now that she's addicted me to Cash Cow, versions 1 and 2! Still trying to figure out the Monkey game . . .

But there's more to life than playing on a virtual playground. I'm playing in real time with the "babies" Saturday morning so that their daddy can finish his kitchen renovations (speaking of which, but that's 1,001 and counting on my priority list so I won't go there, yet).

Michael doesn't know it but he's about to get introduced to the virtual playground too--his very own first Webkin (a beagle like his Lucy and everyone's Snoopy) and other birthday secrets. Shhh, don't tell him! Can't believe he's almost 4 . . .

Also on the weekend's agenda: planting more roses (they keep appearing on my doorstep, but I'm not complaining).

Off to spend the day with a real author tomorrow, the third time in a month. Am I jaded or what?

One day, maybe, I'll take that fork in the road, the writingabook path. Or maybe not. . .

Definitely drizzled tonight!

. . . to be happy about

Lake Erie at Presque Isle: March 29, 2008


Somewhere I have a book with 14,000 reasons. Here are a few (mine and others') from the first ten days of spring
. . .

1. seeing a Great Lake for the very first time
2. finding roses on the doorstep
3. being thrilled to come in ninth
4. negotiating snowdrifts in spring
5. sharing first-week-of-spring birthdays
6. blowing out trick birthday candles
7. circling lighthouses for the best camera angle
8. enjoying rocking chair layovers
9. looking down at cotton candy clouds
10. reading books recommended by grandbabies
11. not being vaporized
12. qualifying for level 10 and regionals
13. surviving hard sudoku challenges
14. earning Webkin points
15. giving and receiving reasons to smile
16. keeping the spirit of break in Spring Break
17. owning a bicycle . . . again
18. planting roses
19. sleeping in late
20. coming home

More to come . . .

kidz in action

Kelsey places 9th on floor at state and qualifies for Level 9 gymnastics regionals (a 7 state event) while

Mason earns RBIs for his allstars baseball team.

1st-week-of-spring birthdays: the third installment

Kodak for Garrett (smile!!!!) . . . and

Justice for Kira Rose (aka the princess)

Turn Garrett's 9 upside down and you'd have Kira's 6.

It took all three grandbabies to extinguish Garrett's trick candles :-)

1st-week-of-spring birthdays--the second installment

These babies know how to help Mama (March 22nd), Daddy, (March 25th), and Nonny (March 26th) celebrate!

bABY, lOOK AT yOU nOW ! ! !

Shhhhh,
don't
tELL
. . .

I'm supposed to be too old for this child's play, me and my brittle bones and out-of-practice self. But, hey, that's why this baby has only one gear and pedalinreverse brakes! I can pool all my mental reserves into remembering how to do what, they say, you never do forget!

Yes, like Campbell, I could forget to watch where I'm going, fall down, break something, learn to write left-handed . . . again! He did , at 7. And I did at 12 (only it was roller skates for me). His cast comes off on Thursday . . . and we're going to, one day soon, ride, ride, ride!

Bet this would make an awesome beach bike . . . Maybe this summer???

Couldn't go for that test bikeride today. . . I was wearing dress shoes and dressy pants and who could bike in that attire? Except my 7-year-old former self, all those birthday years ago, who learned to ride her 26" Huffy in dress shoes and a dressy dress!


Happy Easter!

Happy birthday!

Happy spring!

Thank you Mama and Daddy and Michelle and Rick and Mason and Campbell for touching this child's heart--then and now.

I've got a secret. . .

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Spring slipped in this morning

while we were sleeping.

Tomorrow, Aries!

Birthdays-all-in-a-row.

Pink knockout roses on the doorstep.

Time to breathe it all in.

Spring

break

at last . . .

tell me. . .

Should the boy squish the ant? What do you think, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

The kitchen's on fire. William in his bathtub is riding a tidal wave down the stairs. What do you think will happen next, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

So much of my life, my work, is about coaching others to tell me what they think.

But this morning, looking into Michael's eyes, I knew that this time it really was all right to tell him what I was thinking. . .

Except for these two questions.

Michael will have to make his own way through the moral minefield of squishing ants, just as grandbabies before him have been invited and expected to.

And, even at not quite four, given enough of a story recap to think with, he was able, this morning, to predict that the tidal wave from the broken faucet upstairs would put out the fire. Which it did, in that picture book world.

But for all those other times this morning , all Michael's other invitations to

Tell me, Nonny,

I did--and very much enjoyed (while I still may) being allowed to--tell.

did you know. . .

that March was once the first month of the calendar year?

Think about it: septem(7)ber, oct(8)ber, novem(9)ber, decem(10)ber . . .

I wouldn't have minded a year or more of no trudging through the minefields of january and february. . .but what might life have been without the january babies, Daddy and Grandmaman Yvonne, and without know-no-fear Mason, february and firstborn grandson?

Maybe I need those reminders that life isn't all about spring, reminders that cause me to appreciate all the more that

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!